The Friend’s House is Here

Special Jury Award for Ensemble Cast, US Dramatic, 2026 Sundance Film Festival

Free-spirited dancer Hanna and serious playwright Pari are best friends and roommates who live and breathe art with their circle of friends. Their audience is growing whether online or in underground venues—official permits be damned. Their days are filled with gallery jobs, rehearsing dialogue, dance class, piano duets, and buzzy experimental performances. At night, they laughingly crowd into bohemian apartments debating art, swatting away jealousy, and gushing over homemade dishes. This is a Tehran of passionate young women, swooning with malls, lovers, and nightlife, of gleeful transgressions scolded by hijab-clad elders. It’s a life filled with purpose, beauty, and the romance of sisterhood—until suddenly, one show puts everything at risk.

Maryam Ataei and Hossein Keshavarz’s title THE FRIEND’S HOUSE IS HERE answers Kiarostami’s 1987 film Where is the Friend’s House?—bittersweet context for a clandestine production smuggled out of Iran for its Sundance premiere. With a cast of real-life artists and main characters that closely mirror the filmmakers, Ataei and Keshavarz widen their joyous lens from two artists who refuse to be silenced to the net of people quietly unfolding around them to save each other’s freedom dreams.

– Christina Ree & Wilda Wong